


Honest, You Do

by quartetship



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Inspired by Art, Inspired by Fanart, Inspired by Music, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 00:23:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18354782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartetship/pseuds/quartetship
Summary: 'Now, I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home...'





	Honest, You Do

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by the [lovely artwork](https://twitter.com/jaybeleart/status/1113202456861843457) of [Jaybeleart](https://twitter.com/jaybeleart/). It's been a long time since a single piece of fan art has moved me to write this way, so this really meant a lot to me to be able to write something for!
> 
> Likewise, this story is also heavily influenced by my adoration for a lovely old song by Sam Cooke, which you can listen to [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qol952UDurQ). 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> \--

When you’ve lived a life of losing the things you love over and over until it becomes a familiar feeling, suddenly having them as a constant in your life can be... disorienting. 

It’s a pleasantly strange feeling that Keith grapples with every day. He thinks about how lucky he is that he was able to find Shiro - again and again - and his mother, the fact that he was able to carve out a little found family for himself from the scraps of circumstance as they were all flung into space together. Among them, too, he found Lance, and Keith is sometimes still awestruck by the fact that they were able to make the journey from barely being able to stand one another’s presence to not being able to imagine life without the other. 

Maybe it’s just the life they’ve led over the last few years, though. Maybe anyone would have fallen in love and into one another’s arms that way, he thinks. Regardless, he’s glad for it. He can’t imagine an existence that doesn’t include Lance’s hand there to hold his, now, though he does sometimes entertain thoughts of what his world might have been like if the two of them had never been launched into space in the first place. 

Perhaps if they had been allowed to remain on earth, they might have collided in the way most people do. They might have fallen in love in the quiet, gentle way that other people do, and they might be having dinner together right now in a real home. Maybe, if things had been different for the two of them, they might have had regular military positions at the Garrison or civilian jobs by now, and be preparing for the rest of their average, everyday lives together. 

As it is, though, life has dealt them a very different hand. 

Their days as defenders of the universe are largely behind them, though they are both still connected to it in ways it would be impossible to explain to the average person. Keith often thinks of Lance and himself as different types of missionaries, though he would never use the word aloud to describe either of them. Spreading the good news of peace, though, and helping those who are trying to rebuild their lives after everything the war has taken from them - that’s their focus now. It feels like a lifetime has passed since piloting their lions. 

In some ways it has. The life they have now may never be normal, but it’s something they’ve created out of the leftovers from their time amongst the stars. Crafted from scraps and stardust and breathed to life by the love that has grown so naturally between them, the world they’ve made for themselves exists outside the tiny place they lay their heads at night. It’s bigger than any house, than any planet could ever be. 

It isn’t ‘normal’, Keith thinks, but nothing about their journey to get here has been, either. What matters is that it’s comfortable. It’s genuine. And it’s theirs. 

Still, there are moments when he wonders if they’ve somehow been robbed of things they might have otherwise enjoyed. 

Watching Shiro get married was a joyous occasion for all of them. Seeing his dearest friend and stand-in older brother happy every day is the greatest feeling Keith has ever experienced - except perhaps for the feeling of his own happiness at knowing that Lance is waiting for him at the end of a long day. It’s near the twilight of one of those days that Keith gets an idea in his head that refuses to give him peace. 

And he’s never been one to be able to abandon something he’s focused on. 

“We could have been married by now, you know. Me and Lance.” He says it offhand, talking to Ezor as they prepare to touch down near the tiny farmhouse where Lance lives. It might as well be Keith’s home too, these days; it certainly feels like it, the moment he sees it come into view and feels contentment fill him. 

Ezor fixes him with an odd look, seemingly amused. “So? Why aren’t you?”

Keith shrugs, thinking of all the ways he could answer that question. “Life, I guess.” 

Ezor doesn’t seem impressed with that answer. She shakes her head. “Wouldn’t have stopped me. If you really wanna marry the guy, marry him. Nothin’ stoppin’ ya.” 

_ It’s not that simple, _ he wants to argue. Weddings are supposed to be grand affairs, and Keith doesn’t have the means to give Lance the kind of ceremony or celebration he deserves. And yet, as he descends the ramp onto solid ground and gets his first glimpse of Lance peeking through the window of their shared home - a wide grin on his face at the sight of Keith - he wonders why he ever thought any of that was truly necessary. 

This is Lance looking back at him, after all. Lance, who had once wanted a parade in his own honor, and is now more than happy to live out the rest of his days on a quiet little farm in the middle of nowhere. Lance, who had once complained of being overshadowed by the other Paladins, only to realize his true talent was in building others up so that they could shine as a whole. Lance -  _ Keith’s _ Lance - who is looking back at him now through the open doorway of the tiny farmhouse with a look so genuinely  _ fond _ that Keith isn’t sure he’ll even make it all the way there without simply collapsing at his boyfriend’s feet in adoration. 

He doesn’t need pomp and circumstance. Neither of them do. Keith just needs Lance to know these feelings are here, living inside his chest and billowing out of him every time they’re within a few hundred feet of one another. 

Scooping Lance up into a long-overdue hug and spinning him around on the spot, Keith laughs to match Lance’s own surprised snort. He just needs this. For as long as he can have it. 

—

Keith’s favorite part of returning to the little farmhouse isn’t that it’s so far removed from the cold, wide expanses of space. It isn’t that he’s finally on stable ground, with real food within reach. Those things are wonderful luxuries, but his favorite part of being home is simply that - knowing that the little bedroom Lance sleeps in all the time might as well be Keith’s too and that no lack of a wedding or the formality that life has robbed them of can take that away from them. 

There’s always a toothbrush waiting for him. Clothes to wear. His favorite snacks. He never has to ask for any of it, and sharing all of it with Lance only makes it feel more like he belongs here. Like this is home. 

_ It  _ is  _ home, _ Keith thinks. Ezor was right. The sooner he embraces that fact that he can have - already  _ has  _ \- what he wants, the sooner he’ll stop feeling like life has taken something from him. 

“Are those red pants clean?” Keith calls out as he dresses down for the night. He doesn’t have to specify which ones. Lance replies from another room. 

“Bottom drawer, babe.”

Keith smiles as he pulls his favorite pair of Lance’s pajama pants from the drawer and steps into them. They fit him like they were meant to. At this point, they both consider the checkered, red pants to be Keith’s anyway. But their comfort is about more than the softness of their worn, flannel fabric or the fact that Lance keeps them carefully laundered between Keith’s visits. 

“You look cute, Space Ranger.” Lance’s voice interrupts Keith before he has time to put more thought into why exactly those pj pants make him feel so damned special. Lance stands in the bedroom doorway, eyeing him up and down like he’s wearing something truly amazing. 

Keith grins and makes his way toward him. 

“You too, Farmer Brown.”

At that, Lance snorts. “Missed you,” he says, meeting Keith a few steps inside the door. He’s still dressed in his clothes from the day, and the look of work-weary satisfaction is a handsome one on him. He leans in for a kiss and Keith grants him one and then another, pulling back only to admire his pretty face and run fingers through his hair for a moment between them. 

“Missed you more,” he teases. Lance hums, laughing through his nose. 

“Doubt that.”

With the practiced grace of someone who has made the same move a thousand times before, Lance slides hands down and back up Keith’s sides, sighing the whole way. Keith relaxes against him, reveling in the feeling of simply being so close to him. The universe seems to do its best to keep them apart sometimes, but Lance has a way of making all of that melt away - of making Keith forget every moment they’ve spent apart. He erases the longing built up beneath Keith’s skin and replaces it with a lingering feeling of love that Keith can carry with him even after they’re apart. 

It’s a feeling he wouldn’t trade for any wonder in all the galaxy. 

The only thing that makes Keith’s heart threaten to float right out of its cage in his ribs any more than being held so tenderly is Lance’s propensity for making the smallest of moments into something worthy of a romance novel. Predictably, he does exactly that with a slide of his hand to the small of Keith’s back and a step in closer toward him, humming the first few bars of a song as he starts leading Keith in a slow dance around their little bedroom floor. 

_ ‘Darling you send me…’  _ Lance begins, his voice picking up strength and clarity as he goes. His singing has always been beautiful - and has always made Keith’s heart feel as weak as his knees. 

Lance is keenly aware of this, so it seems. The grin he pulls while watching Keith’s awestruck face is almost irritating - or at least it  _ would  _ be, if he didn’t keep singing. Unfortunately for Keith, he does. 

_ ‘I know you send me. Darling you send me. Honest, you do, honest, you do.’ _

With a hand at Keith’s back and one clasping Keith’s own fingers, Lance kisses the tops of Keith’s knuckles before leaning in close, pulling them chest to chest and singing right into Keith’s ear, breath warm and voice gentle and quiet enough to make him shiver. 

_ ‘At first, I thought it was infatuation. Ooh, but it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting… To marry you and take you home…’ _

Lance doesn’t finish any more of the song before Keith is overcome with the need to kiss him. That may have been part of his plan all along, though, because the satisfied hum with which he greets Keith’s ambush of his lips is almost too pleased for Keith’s taste. 

When they part, Lance’s markings are glowing, soft and ambient in their light, illuminating his already beautiful blue eyes. 

Keith is nearly left breathless. 

“You mean that?” he says, barely more than a whisper. Lance raises an eyebrow. 

“Mean what, baby?”

“The things you said,”  Keith manages, trying to compose himself. Lance’s pet names aren’t helping. “Or were you just singing a pretty song to get me in the mood?”

A wicked grin. “Why? Is it workin’?” Lance asks.

Keith rolls his eyes and pushes at his shoulder, though he doesn’t really want him to go anywhere. “You’re the worst.”

Lance just smiles, taking hold of Keith’s waist and swaying where they stand in the middle of the small bedroom. “You love me.”

“I do,” Keith says, and he’s never meant anything more genuinely, more nakedly in all his life. 

A moment passes that Keith would gladly keep forever, one that he would love to linger in. Just the two of them, holding one another in pleasant almost-silence as Lance hums a few more bars of his love song and Keith breathes in the sound of it. Before Lance speaks again, he stops to press a kiss to Keith’s forehead, then his nose, like he can’t stop himself. 

Keith can relate. 

“I did, though. I do. Mean that stuff,” Lance says. “All of it.”

Keith smiles. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

Looping arms around Lance’s neck, Keith lets himself indulge in the question he really wants to hear the answer to. It’s one he hadn’t even let himself think about until his own answer was so painfully obvious - and now he needs to know if the same is true for Lance. “You’d marry me?”

“God, yes,” Lance says, and looks back at Keith with something akin to desperation in his eyes. “I know I don’t have anything to offer you right now. But Keith, I swear. One of these days—”

“Why?” Keith interrupts. Lance blinks back at him, mouth still hanging open. 

“Huh?”

Dropping his arms from around Lance’s neck, Keith gestures questioningly. “Why one of these days? Why not now?” His tone isn’t angry. He isn’t upset. 

For the life of him, Lance doesn’t seem to be able to understand why not. 

“Keith… I have nothing,” he says, earnestly. “Nothing to offer you. Nothing to give you. I mean…  _ We _ have nothing. Look at us.” He gestures around at the tiny room they stand in, out the window toward the farmland beyond. When he looks back at Keith, he must be expecting something other than what he sees, though, because when he meets Keith’s stubborn expression, it startles him. 

“I know,” Keith agrees. “Look at us.” 

Keith closes the small space between them again, taking Lance into his arms. 

He can’t imagine a life that offers him more than he has now. His whole family - everyone he has ever known and loved - are safe and accounted for. He has met the love of his life and has a chance to settle down with him and make their own little life, together. Maybe it won’t be the ideal situation. Maybe they won’t have a ceremony or a celebration the way they might have if their lives had been different. But maybe they don’t need to. Maybe if he can just make Lance understand...

“We have this,” he says, pressing his hand to Lance’s chest. “This is… This is everything I want.” He hopes the look in his eyes says what he desperately wishes he could articulate. 

_ You have already given me everything that I could want.  _

“You mean that?” Lance asks, and Keith notices that his eyes have gone shiny. They well over with tears and Keith brings hands up to thumb them away, never one to let those beautiful eyes cry without comfort. Lance takes hold of Keith’s hands and kisses them, and Keith keeps one of Lance’s hands in his, returning the favor. 

“Honest, I do,” he says, in a singsong voice not unlike Lance’s sweet little song. With nothing to lose and everything to gain in that moment, he holds Lance’s hand tightly in his own and kisses it once more before sinking to his knees in front of his boyfriend. “Would…” he fumbles, not sure if he’s allowed to ask properly. But then, who cares? When have they ever done anything the way they’re supposed to? 

The words come straight from the place where his feelings for Lance overflow as he looks up at him and smiles. 

“Will you marry me?”

Lance stills, looking down at Keith with an expression floating somewhere between confusion and panic. For a fraction of a heartbeat, Keith worries that he’s been wrong this whole time - that Lance doesn’t want this as much as he does. But then there is an audible break in the tension as Lance hiccups, nodding furiously and scrunching up his face as his markings blaze a bright and brilliant blue. 

“Of course I will,” he says, hardly able to speak. He makes certain Keith understands him, though, nodding over and over as he tugs Keith to his feet again and kisses him, once and then once more, and then  _ again and again _ until it’s obvious that he wants this as much as Keith ever has.  _ “Yes.”  _

Keith laughs, because it’s all his brain offers in response to the overwhelming joy he feels. Lance is wiping away tears that refuse to stop with his sleeve and missing most of them, laughing as well. There is no ring, no crowd gathered to clap and take photos and share the good news with. There is nothing and no one around them but sweet, simple silence and a giddy feeling of freedom to have exactly what they want and enjoy it on their own terms, simply because they can. 

Settling into their new reality, Lance nuzzles into the crook of Keith’s neck, inhaling like he’s trying to memorize the moment with each of his senses and exhaling with a melodious hum. He returns to the song he was singing earlier, holding Keith close as he croons. 

_ ‘And now I find myself wanting,’ _ \- he sings, laughing even as he does -  _ ‘To marry you and take you home…’ _

Keith hums. “We  _ are _ home,” he smiles. Lance nods. They spend minutes that might as well be hours, dancing to a tune that no one else will ever hear. 

And Keith has never been more okay with anything in his entire life. 

For a moment, the bliss is fractured when Lance’s singing falters. His voice is soft and shaky as he leans in close and presses his forehead against Keith’s, like he’s saying something he doesn’t want anyone else to hear.

“But Keith… What if this is as good as it ever gets?” he asks. He gestures timidly to their surroundings again. Keith won’t let him linger on the thought. 

“Then life will always be fine,” he says without a second of hesitation. He brushes his nose against Lance’s, kisses the tip of his nose and then his forehead. He knows how scary the universe is from personal experience - knows Lance does too - and having an unknown future before them after such a turbulent few years is inarguably unsettling. But he’ll do anything to keep a smile on that beautiful face as often as he can. Just the thought brings a smile to his own. “I think I could handle that.”

Lance seems satisfied with that response. He leans in again and lets Keith hold him, there in their small shared space in their own little corner of the universe. Safe for the moment. Engaged to be married. 

“Me too,” he says. “Honest, I do.”


End file.
